It is known to hold disposable absorbent bodies in place against the body of an incontinent wearer with reusable pant-type underwear articles. The disposable absorbent bodies may be sanitary napkins or incontinence articles. This approach has advantages over conventional absorbent articles with an integral absorbent core such as diapers or incontinence pants, in that only the absorbent component of the article is disposed after soiling, while the underwear component can be reused, thus providing savings in both manufacturing costs and materials.
Laminate-type materials are known as components of absorbent articles such as diapers. For example, WO 03/047488 discloses an elastic laminate comprising an elastic film which on opposite sides is bonded to first and second non-elastic fibrous layers. The laminate is made by bonding the non-elastic fibrous layers to the elastic film layer and subsequently stretching the composite material, causing the non-elastic materials to break. The elastic film material may be of a breathable material. The laminate may be incorporated in an absorbent article, such as a diaper. No mention is made of the puncture resistance of such a material. The process described in WO 03/047488 will give a material which is soft and elastic, but which on the other hand has low resistance to puncturing, as the broken outer nonwoven layers will make no contribution to the puncture resistance of the laminate.
EP0861647 discloses an underwear system comprising a reusable underpant part and an exchangeable absorber lining. The pants consist of a 3-layer laminate, which contains a membrane film as an intermediate layer between two textile structures.
Elastic materials, such as stretch-bonded laminates, are also known. Such laminates may include a layer of meltblown elastomeric fibers which have been stretched and sandwiched between outer layers of spunbonded webs.
US2003/0022582 describes a laminate in which an elastomeric film is bound between two or more layers of nonwoven webs. The laminate is said to be particularly useful in elastic “ears” of diapers, which allow the diaper to be stretched to accommodate variously sized wearers. It is stated that nonwoven materials provide little or no puncture resistance, hence any puncture resistance which the laminate has will be almost exclusively due to the puncture resistance of the elastomeric film.
However, there is room for improvement of the underwear articles used in two-component systems. The consumer places high demands on the comfort, fit and cloth-like feel of the pant-type underwear articles. Discreteness of the article is also a high priority, so the underwear article should be thin, preferably equally as thin as a pair of ordinary cotton pants. Furthermore, it is highly desirable that the absorbent body is held correctly in position against the wearer's body by the underwear article, so that it is optimally positioned to receive body exudates and undesired slippage or movement of the absorbent body is avoided. The underwear article itself is intended to be re-used, and therefore requires washing. It must therefore be able to tolerate the elevated temperatures, water, detergents and mechanical agitation which are present in the washing and/or drying machines of today without breaking. There is therefore a need for improvement of the strength of underwear articles, particularly their resistance to puncture.